Dual Opterons over Core 2 Duo?

[AndroidVageta]

A buddy of mine has an older dual Opteron system that he will sell to me for $400. The specs are as followed, and everything mentioned is included:


2 x AMD Opteron 252 (2.6ghz, 1mb cache, S940)
Tyan Thunder K8WE (S2895) server motherboard with NVIDIA nForce SLI 2 x 16x PCI-e
2gb (4 x 512mb) DDR1 ECC REG RAM
Nvidia 7600GT 512MB PCI-e
Thermaltake Armor case
850 watt PC Power and Cooling SLI ready PSU

My current system consists of:

Intel Core 2 Duo E2200 overclocked 2.2ghz to 3ghz solid
Giga-byte DS3 motherboard
2gb DDR2-800 RAM
NVIDIA 9600GT 512MB


Now I know that the case, power supply, and video card are pretty exciting extras that my friend is throwing in considering his low $400 price tag. Those extra's could be a major upgrade compared to what I currently have which is sum cheap 500watt Antec powersupply and a ancient steel server behemoth of a case. However, as nice as these things would be my primary focus is on the difference in performance.

What system would be faster?

My main focus is on gaming.

The Opteron system due to its motherboard cannot be overclocked, so I'm stuck at 2.6ghz right off the bat. I don't think that is really that bad though. I mean, they're still strong CPU's and 64-bit compatible, so they're just as future ready as my Core 2 Duo right? And is DDR1 RAM really that bad, even for gaming? I mean, its only 2gb, which isn't optimal for gaming but its plenty and can easily be upgraded for cheap, 1gb sticks on pricewatch.com for $25, so 3 or 4gb is totally possible. The PCI-e slots also aren't 2.0 compatible, which I don't think is a big deal as I doubt there are cards even now that take full advantage of even an 8x PCI-e 1.0 slot. SLi is an amazing plus on something like this as well.

I don't know, reading current news and reviews suggest to me that even a E2200 overclocked would be faster than the Opterons, but it just seems like such a good system to pass up.

Any help or advice that anyone could give would be awesome. Its tough making decisions like this when there are no benchmarks comparing the two.

 

[Accord99]

Going from this techreport review:

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/8236/6

A single dual-core 2.2GHz Opteron 175 is almost always faster than dual single-core 2.2GHz Opteron 248s. Generally, the second socket results in a noticeable performance loss in games. A 3GHz E2200 should have no troubles beating the 2S Opteron system in everything except memory bandwidth benchmarks.

 

[AndroidVageta]

Really? Do you think I would notice a big difference in performance?

 

[Accord99]

Your OC'ed E2200 would be around 35-40% faster in CPU intensive apps, plus the 2S Opteron system will consume a lot more power, produce a lot more heat and make a lot more noise.

 

[AndroidVageta]

What if I were too upgrade the CPU's to the dual core 275? Bad boys are like $100 online, hella cheap. Would the speed of those be bottle necked by the DDR400 RAM with a 800mhz dual channel max? The Opteron 275 has a 1000mhz fsb, so would the 200mhz lost from the RAM 800mhz reduce the core speed of the CPU? Do you think there would be a lost in gaming performance because of the DDR1 PC3200?

 

[Accord99]

But for $400 + at least $200 more to upgrade to Opteron 275s, you can get a Q6600 plus a new case and PSU. If you remember the Quad FX, you'll need more than 3GHz to match the Q6600 in games:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...owdoc.aspx?i=2879&p=10

I think that with quad-cores at reasonable prices, I wouldn't bother with a Socket 940 Opteron 2S system unless you get it for free.

 

[daveybrat]

Why are you considering buying old hardware and technology that is much slower than what you already have? Any Core2Duo cpu will run circles around that machine and who wants to be stuck with old DDR1 ECC ram?

You can buy a new motherboard, Quad-Core Intel cpu and 4GB of DDR2 ram for less than $400 that will bury that system.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: AndroidVageta


What system would be faster?

My main focus is on gaming.

Intel, no contest

 

[error8]

Forget about your so called "friend"s offer. For 400$ you can buy, like others have pointed out, the Q6600 which is faster then those dual opterons and still have some $ left for you to burn on a videocard or whatever. Spending those money on that platform is pure nonsense.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Buy it, take the guts out, and part it out over ebay. Make back your money on the parts, and then keep the PSU and case for your future builds.

 

[OCNewbie]

Another vote for keeping what you have or going with a current Intel rig. Don't spend $400 on outdated/outperformed tech. Especially if you're gaming you are better off with the C2D.

 

[RaptureMe]

Guy for $400 you could get a Q6600 or Q8200 and a Ati 4850 or 4870 overnighted to you from newegg..
This upgrade would rape those opti's Left and Right All Day and All Night!!

 

[AndroidVageta]

Yeah, I guess you all are right. I guess I just wanted the Opterons to be faster so I could use them as bragging rights...I mean, even today saying dual Opterons has a sense of power to me...just me I guess.

Im probably still going to get it though honestly...the case and power supply alone are almost worth the price...and dual Opterons would make a pretty sick ass Media Center PC would they not?

 

[RaptureMe]

Really man if you have to go Amd Multi socket get an updated version dont waist your time and money on an out dated DDR1 piece of craptastic system.
Get like a Dual or Quad socket F you'll thank me in the end!!

 

[lyssword]

No, dude. Just NO

 

[AndroidVageta]

Well, its just one of those things where the case and power supply alone are worth atleast $250 so getting a dual Opteron system with SLI just seemed like the right thing to do since it all that hardware is just an extra $150 on top of the case/PSU.

But yeah, according to SiSiandra 2008 my CPU (Intel E2200 overclocked to 3ghz) on the arithmetic and multimedia test out does their reference E6600. I'm pretty sure the E6600 is a lot faster than these Opterons and if my CPU can score that high, albeit synthetic testing, I know now that even my $60 Intel can beat what used to be a $3000 Dual Opteron system like 2 years ago. Amazing how far technology goes year by year.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: lyssword
No, dude. Just NO

+1

 

[AndroidVageta]

I can get a ASUS L1N64-SLI WS quad SLi motherboard and 2 x Opteron 2214 2.2ghz dual cores off Craigslist for trade for my CPU/mobo and $100. Would a quad core Opteron system based system be slower than what I have?

 

[krose]

These fine folks are trying to prevent you from making a mistake. Please listen to them. Don't spend money on outdated technology.

 

[OCNewbie]

A dual cpu motherboard is not designed to excel in games. I'm finding it hard to believe this is not a fake post. For what it seems you want to use the new rig for, it seems to be a total waste of your money.

 

[AndroidVageta]

No, its not a fake post, I was settled on the 252's, but I was just wondering about the new one I found, I just find it hard to believe that a cheap-o Intel could beat hands down a quad core Opteron...just doesn't ring right.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

The case and power supply might be nice, but you don't need an 850W PSU for a 9600GT. Even a Phenom system would be a much better choice than those dual Opterons.

 

[mooseracing]

Originally posted by: AndroidVageta
No, its not a fake post, I was settled on the 252's, but I was just wondering about the new one I found, I just find it hard to believe that a cheap-o Intel could beat hands down a quad core Opteron...just doesn't ring right.

Depends on what you are trying to beat it in. The intel could never keep up with data movement compared to the opteron.

I'm happy with my software overclocked dual 880's (dual-duals, running at 2.8) and 8GB's of RAM.

I wish I could overclock more but I can't because of no harware options. They have run every FPS without issue. The ony thing they are limited by is the PCI-E vid card.

I bought everything on the cheap though, open box mobo (more than half off), system pull cpus ( each one was $90 for 4 way CPU's), used memory from the multi cpu forum.

It's way more power than I need for a desktop/workstation but its fun.

As soon as I can get my hands on some decently priced new 45nm Quad optys I will be building a new dual system.

 

[AndroidVageta]

Well, talking to the seller of the system, he told me after I beat him down a little bit that he would give to me in a straight up trade. Now according to you mooseracing you said you have had no problems except for your video card. What card are you using? Better than my 9600GT? I mean, I know my Intel hard ware is newer than the Opterons, but I'm going for speed, not for the newest tech. Would you say I would be downgrading at all by going to the Opterons? I know they're badass at number crunching but I don't see them being slower than a cheap Intel...I mean, 4 x 2.2ghz cores...much more cache than my CPU, faster bus speeds, etc...the Opterons on paper just look like they can't be beat.

Plus according to benchmarks that Ive seen, games that use quad cores or that have support for that many threads, a dual CPU dual core FX-70 system beat the Core 2 Extreme X6800 on a Fritz 9 Chess benchmarks.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...d-quad-fx_8.html#sect0

See, I know that a single CPU Opteron would be slower than my Intel, but two of them, thats 8.8ghz (w/o overclock) compared to my Intel at 6ghz, which isn't really all that stable sometimes.

 

[Accord99]

Depend on what applications you use it for. Using Anandtech's QuadFX review as a guide and comparing a 2.66 E6700 vs 2x3GHz A64 FX-74, for video encoding and rendering, the dual-dual Opteron system will be strong. But for most games and many desktop applications which aren't well multi-threaded, the overclocked E2200 will handily beat the Opteron system. Often times, for these applications you would be better with just one CPU as can be seen here:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=2879&p=6

Plus there's the issue of power usage, heat and noise; the dual Opteron system will probably consume 2-3X as much power.